Google Play Books lands in 9 new countries

Google is stepping up its education thrust and has now made its Google Play Books store available in nine more territories. Joining the list of supported markets is New Zealand and eight Asian countries.

Back in July, in the midst of launching its new Nexus 7 and the latest Android 4.3 version, Google made a commitment to lend a helping hand in improving the quality of education by making partnerships with major textbook publishers, promising to bring educational materials to its digital book catalog in time for the start of school. While Google did deliver on that promise in time, it’s reach could only go so far.

Google Play Books is not available in all territories covered by Google Play Store for various legal or other reasons. Fortunately, Google seems to be quite intent in making its selection of books available to people in more countries. Starting today, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam join the roster of 26 other countries that have access to Google’s offerings.

Hopefully we’ll get to hear of more countries being added to the list, especially developing countries where budget mobile devices are quite numerous but access to books, educational or otherwise, isn’t so easy or affordable.